LFC chairman must deal with those causing the damage

By Tom Wilson and Jim Boardman

On Saturday a senior Liverpool official made it perfectly clear that there was absolutely nothing to read from the fact that Reds boss Rafa Benítez was yet to meet new chairman Martin Broughton. He claimed it was all part of some plot to paint a false picture of disharmony at Anfield. He got on great with Rafa and Rafa was happy.

Even now it’s difficult to work out how he thought anyone would fall for that. Or why he seems to tell different stories to different people. People compare notes, compare what he’s told them, then shake their heads.

On Saturday the senior official said that there had been one meeting planned. It would have been ahead of the first-leg of the Europa League semi against Atlético Madrid, but volcanic ash put paid to that idea. When the call came out for the squad to meet up at Runcorn station, the meeting was unsurprisingly called off.

Obviously the new chairman is quite different to the last man to have the job all to himself. David Moores used to travel on the team bus with the squad; Martin Broughton doesn’t come across as someone who would feel comfortable slumming it across Europe in first class with the players.

According to the senior Liverpool official on Saturday, no other meeting had been scheduled so far. The first opportunity following the journey to Madrid would probably have been tied in with the return leg a week later, but with Rafa unavailable until after midnight it was decided, the senior official said, that there was no time for the chairman to meet the manager. Presumably the chairman – who of course has other responsibilities away from Liverpool FC – was unable to pop round to Melwood the following morning.

That following morning, the Friday, had been the day before the senior official was explaining why there hadn’t yet been a meeting. And at almost the exact time as the senior Liverpool official was explaining why there hadn’t been a meeting so far, the club’s official site was making it clear that the next opportunity for a meeting was also going to be missed.

Liverpool’s last home game of the season was the following day, the Sunday, against the team Martin Broughton has supported all his life, Chelsea. Broughton had presumably set off home early on Friday morning after watching the Atlético game, and he told the official site he wouldn’t be coming back up for that Chelsea match. He wasn’t even going to be in the city for the game, he didn’t want to be seen to celebrate any Chelsea goals. “The only sensible thing is for me to stay at home and watch it on the television,” he said.

So he wasn’t exactly making himself available for a meeting with Rafa, which in itself isn’t really a major issue. He’d cleared off before Rafa was available on the Thursday night, he didn’t stick around on Friday to meet then and he didn’t come back up on Saturday in preparation for the Sunday match, so no chance of squeezing a meeting in there.

Rafa did want to talk to him, but there clearly hadn’t been time. It was frustrating but understandable. Surely a meeting would be held before the week was out, with no game for Liverpool Rafa would have more room in his own diary to match up with Broughton’s no-doubt hectic schedule.

But then came the story on the BBC website, and other BBC outlets, soon to spread like wildfire around the rest of the media.

“Liverpool boss Rafael Benitez has cancelled two scheduled face-to-face meetings with the club’s new chairman, Martin Broughton,” wrote David Bond, the BBC’s replacement for Mihir Bose as Sports Editor.

Bond had the same title at the Telegraph before joining the BBC, but will be best remembered by Liverpool fans from his time as the paper’s Chief Sports Reporter. From knowing full details of Gillett and Hick’s refinancing deal with RBS before it was announced, to publishing emails DIC and Amanda Staveley had been sent by Hicks, Bond was clearly getting information from people inside and outside the club during that very turbulent period.

So who would be talking to him now? Whoever it was wanted to add more weight to the campaign to see Rafa hounded out of the club. “It is understood that he [Benítez] pulled out of talks with Broughton last week and another the week before,” wrote Bond.

As has just been explained, Rafa did not cancel any meetings with Broughton, and whatever any fan thinks of Benítez, or where his future should be, the fact that someone from Liverpool is trying to smear the manager should set alarm bells ringing loud and clear.

This is about far more than Rafael Benítez. This is just the latest in a long line of examples of the press being briefed about Rafa in a way that certainly wasn’t designed to be supportive of the manager. What other lies are being peddled?

Even Bond seemed to be unsure of exactly what the story was, writing: “It is not clear why Benitez cancelled the meetings with Broughton, although the last two weeks have been affected by preparations for Liverpool’s Europa League semi-final meetings with Atletico Madrid. The first week in particular was heavily disrupted as Benitez’s team were forced to make the long journey to the Spanish capital by road and rail after flights were grounded by ash from the Icelandic volcano.”

Benítez didn’t cancel the meetings, but if he had it was probably slightly more important he got on that train at Runcorn than staying back to meet Broughton. Even Rafa can’t be blamed for the volcanic ash. So why would someone at Anfield feed the BBC this “story”?

There aren’t too many candidates for the source of this latest leak. Bond said it came from a Liverpool board member: “There is some surprise inside the Anfield boardroom at the timing of Benitez’s call on Tuesday for an urgent meeting with Broughton to discuss the future.”

Bond was one of the first reporters to interview Martin Broughton after his appointment, so perhaps he is a candidate for this story being fed to the press. But Broughton wasn’t at the club when the earliest briefings against Rafa began, to other members of the press. Of course it’s always possible that somebody else told Broughton that Rafa had cancelled the meetings. Someone wary of Rafa actually getting to meet the chairman, and telling the chairman exactly what has been going on.

One subtle hint that somebody was talking out of turn came in one of the infamous Henry Winter columns. In November he wrote: “The impressive managing director, Christian Purslow, is not the type for knee-jerk reactions. But it is known around Anfield that Purslow has talked to Benítez about his style of management, notably his cold detachment from the players.”

So back in November someone from the club was telling Henry Winter that Benítez had been given a dressing-down by Purslow, that Benítez was being told how to manage his players, essentially being told how to do his job. And it’s as obvious as it looks exactly who it was that impressed this information on Winter.

That wasn’t all that Winter learned from his new source: “Liverpool can afford to sack Benítez,” wrote Winter. “Compensation would be less than £5 million under the ‘mitigating the loss’ principle if he found employment.” Which perhaps should now have Winter scratching his head as to why impressive people would be on the phone to him angrily criticising the manager instead of just sacking him.

And it’s not as if Winter wasn’t afforded the opportunity to ask that question. No prizes for guessing which senior Liverpool official spent a good part of the bank holiday weekend frantically phoning around trying to get his side, or one of his sides, of the story over. It was almost as if he was frightened that the truth might come out. And Winter had a chance to challenge this particular Liverpool board member on where his stories didn’t really add up. But some reporters would rather just take the information they’re fed and repeat it, hoping there’s plenty more where that came from, than question what they are being told.

Having managed to get so many column inches out of the politicking of a certain LFC board member, Winter completely missed the irony of his opening paragraph: “If Rafael Benítez truly respects Liverpool Football Club he’ll leave Anfield today. The players have lost the faith, the boardroom is unimpressed with the politicking and the supporters are suffering, albeit in silence.”

When the truth does come out about a certain LFC board member and his efforts to keep the truth from the supporters, perhaps that silence will be broken. And maybe that silence needs to be broken. Maybe the efforts to keep the attention on Benítez to take it away from the failings of the Managing Director and the owners he worked for need to be emphasised a little more. And that might just be a bit messy – but what’s new? That’s how it’s been at Anfield for some time. “If he stays, the inevitable long goodbye becomes indescribably messy, distressing for all concerned and demeaning to a club of Liverpool’s great history. This is not a warning for Benítez, this is a fact,” wrote Winter. The same fact applies, but much more strongly, to the club’s temporary MD.

Bill Shankly was the man who made Liverpool great, the man who brought so much of that “great history” to the club. Nobody knows what he would have made of Benitez; chances are he would have seen good and bad in him and he could well have been saying Rafa’s time was up by now. But it doesn’t take a lot of imagination to work out what he would have thought of the club’s owners. And it takes even less imagination to work out what he would have thought of Christian Purslow. And less still what he would have thought of the tactics employed by the club’s current custodian to force Rafa out.

Shanks would also have torn a strip off Henry Winter had he ever been unfortunate enough to cross his path. Winter wrote of Rafa: “He’s got a centre-back at left-back and a holding midfielder at right-back.” With the only two left-backs at the club injured, what else was Rafa meant to do? One thing Rafa tried was putting the right-back at left-back, which was why the holding midfielder played at right-back on the Thursday. By the Sunday the right-back was injured too, which is why the centre-back went to left-back, and the holding midfielder stayed at right-back. This isn’t a string of excuses; it’s just some simple facts. Liverpool have to make do and mend.

Christian Purlsow’s arrival coincided with spending on transfers that, going off the fees available in public, went from being “net spend” to “net profit”. Liverpool brought more in than went out last year. That’s the calendar year 2009.

When Winter used the phrase “How embarrassing,” in his article it surely should have been to describe his own willingness to stick up so transparently for his source in the Liverpool boardroom. And really his article didn’t deserve much more time than that, as went into some kind of rant out of sympathy to his new friend on the board at Anfield.

That new friend should have the balls to stand up in public and say what he’s saying privately to the press, if he truly believes it and feels it would stand up to scrutiny. But he knows that, despite claims to the contrary, most Liverpool fans either want Benítez to stay or only want him to leave because they feel he’s been worn down by the unnecessary pressures of the past few years. The vast majority of fans will always consider Benítez a hero, whatever happens.

And that is what frightens the board member. He knows that sooner or later the manager will blow him up for what he’s done. He knows that more and more people are starting to see through him. And he knows that if he sacks the manager he’ll never be forgiven.

Liverpool’s new chairman was appointed in a non-executive role. The senior Liverpool official constantly points out that the new chairman was appointed in that way, and that he has no control over the actual running of the club, that he’s merely there to sell the club.

But the senior Liverpool official fails to mention something very important about the role of a non-executive director. According to the government-commissioned Higgs report, non-executive directors “are responsible for… where necessary removing, senior management.”

Surely a senior Liverpool official briefing the press against the club’s manager, over such a sustained period, is grounds for his removal. His decision to bad-mouth the club’s owners, however accurate it might be, is hardly the best way to attract £100m of investment. And that was his major objective when appointed. Perhaps he wanted to delay the partial sale to prolong his own career as Mr Liverpool, to help build up that empire. Is this not also grounds for removal? To discuss transfer targets – even if they are his own, not the manager’s – with the press is also grounds for removal. The list goes on.

And that, Martin Broughton, is where you come in. You need to get to the bottom of this mess and you need to get to the bottom of it fast.

18 thoughts on “LFC chairman must deal with those causing the damage”

Please, please, please find a way to get this superb investigative article to Martin Broughton BEFORE he meets Rafa. The “Rafa cencels meetings” articles were part of a blatant and brutal effort to undermine a manager who has put up with an impossible and untenable situation for so long now. I’m devastated about the way my club is handling its affairs at the Board level. I suspect Purslow is the primary culprit, so thanks for posting this article.

All i can say is it is overwhelming to read this article,to
have such knowledge AND support on our the fans side in these awful times.We all know Rafa has his little anorak ways but you tell me a better man for the job for LFC? he has and does outthink Mourino,outhougt Rijkaard,same with Ferguson i personally dont want Mourino at Anfield but i am a lone voice,i think we already have the main man here if he was allowed to do the best of his ability and allowed to but the players he wants,Brilliant article eand thanks

How elating and encouraging this article is. This will go a long way to clear Benitez who albeit has his own failings as a human of all media reports. This will show his loyalty to the club. It will also help to educate fans around the world the core headache with liverpool.But why will Purslow this time, and the former MD resgned due to almost same issues like these? Could it be because Rafa is not English?
These crop of manager are not gud for liverpool at all. Why do they just want to ruin the image of the club and her history?
Well, we hope things get fixed as soon as possible.

How elating and encouraging this article is. This will go a long way to clear Benitez who albeit has his own failings as a human of all media reports. This will show his loyalty to the club. It will also help to educate fans around the world the core headache with liverpool.But why should it be Purslow this time, and the former MD resgned due to almost same issues like these? Could it be because Rafa is not English?
These crop of manager are not gud for liverpool at all. Why do they just want to ruin the image of the club and her history?
Well, we hope things get fixed as soon as possible.

Great article, brings to light issues that most fans don’t know about or just choose to ignore. Benitez has been undermined by the people in power at LFC for years. And for all those who see Purslow as a saviour remember, he was brought in by the banks to do the right thing by them.

Great article, good to see something from the other end of the spectrum. It does seem common sense alludes many, while a big emblazened headline in a newspaper cannot be doubted! My only question though is where is the proof for the claims against Purslow? It’s very damning against him, based on really only a hunch it seems. Though your in the right in the eyes of true Liverpool fans, the approach is similar to those who castigate our manager.

dont forget purslow has done a very good job financially for us since he has been in. you dont get to hes position without being outstandingly professional. there are also other board members who are out of the spotlight. i agree this needs to get to someone at liverpool anyway even if just to get them thinking. good article mate

Yes Jim your so right, the people causing the problems are Purslow Hicks & Gillett, and before them Moores & Parry and Steve Heighway, Paco, Alonso, Crouch, Reine, Torres, Gerrard and everyone else that Mr Benitez cannot bent to his ways. The one person who definitely is not at fault no matter what he does to the club is Mr Benitez isn’t that right Jim.

@Joe – Long list of people you just named there. All of them without fault? All of them perfect?

Hicks? Gillett? Not caused any problems at the club at all then? Is that what Joe’s telling us, to lay off Hicks and Gillett?

Purslow? Happy for him to go around undermining this manager? And if this manager leaves you’ll be happy for him to do the same again? And, as we’re on the subject of Purslow, who gets to negotiate the contract next time? Purslow did it last time, he told us all, and we wouldn’t want another manager “too expensive” to be sacked now would we?

Moores? Last big decision he made was to sell to Hicks and Gillett. But you seem to be happy with them, so I suppose you see that as a good move on his part.

Parry? Lot of good points about Parry, always well-meaning I’d say, but fell down on getting things done quickly enough.

Still more names to come? Okay let’s see.

Steve Heighway. Great man, great player, said by many to be very stubborn on his policies and as a result very few players came through. Sometimes if something’s not working despite their best efforts, it’s time to move someone on. Is that not what a lot of people are saying about Rafa?

Paco. Let me know what Rafa has blamed on Paco. They fell out, they didn’t make up, they went their separate ways.

Getting tedious now but I’ll try and carry on. Alonso? His last-but-one season was one where he missed a lot of games through injury, then found he couldn’t get a start. For most of that season Gerrard and Mascherano were the midfielders, at a time when Rafa was constantly slated by his critics for any sniff of “rotation”. Right or wrong, Gerrard and Mascherano kept their places most of the time. Later in the season Gerrard moved forward, Xabi was brought in, he played far more games, but that season wasn’t his best by any means. The sale never went through that summer, and after that Xabi practically never got left out. But he chose to go to Real, speaking to them before the season was out and becoming our record transfer sale. Money that never got re-invested into the squad. But that’s okay, your friends Hicks, Gillett and Purslow had no problems with that.

Crouch. Waste of money at £7m turned into one of Liverpool’s most missed (by fans) players for some time when he was sold for a decent profit. He wanted more games than he was getting, and Rafa didn’t seem to see a role for him other than the one Torres was pretty good at. And he got far more in wages when he moved on. Rafa could have tried to accommodate him, but sometimes it’s better to get the money for the player and use it on someone else. Sometimes it doesn’t work out. As all managers can tell you.

Reine? Or Reina? Exactly what has Rafa blamed on Reina? I’m sure a few of us would love to hear this one. Some fans and critics didn’t rate Reina when he arrived, funny how quiet they are about that these days.

Nearly done now. Torres. Yes, of course, Rafa criticises Torres far too much, blames just about everything on him nowadays. Oh wait, he doesn’t, does he? And Gerrard? Yes, week-in week-out Rafa blames Gerrard, to the point of taking the captaincy off him and dropping him all the time. Oh, hang on, that’s not true either is it?

Rafa’s made plenty mistakes, some of which he’s taken ages to learn from, others he’s learned from very quickly, others he’s still working on. He doesn’t always listen to Andy Gray on Sky or Mark Lawrenson of the Mirror/BBC, two great managers themselves, so it’s no wonder he gets so much stick. Believe it or not, he does actually admit he’s got things wrong, but do you expect him to sit there in every press conference and admit his failings and errors one by one? Should he take the example of his peers? Ferguson never blames the ref, or the pitch, or the fixture scheduling, or the colour of the shirts his players are wearing, does he?

You’re a bit angry really, just shouting out about anything and everything, and haven’t really thought about it all very carefully, isn’t that right Joe?

Nobody at the club can hold their hands up and claim to be completely blameless, nobody. But some people think all the blame should be pinned on Benitez. And then they wonder why people don’t take them seriously.

Thanks for these recent articles Jim and for effectively answering my question about what the deal is with Purslow.

The one thing I do not completey understand is why Purslow wants Benitez out. I can understand that whilst wanting him out and not being able to afford it, he is trying to force him out, but I’m interested why he wants him out in the first place.

Appreciate I could be missing something obvious here but I wondered whether you could briefly shed some light on why this might be the case?

If I had to hazard a guess I’d say that he saw Rafa as a threat, it’s all I can think of really. I’ve seen and heard endless anecdotes that would suggest Purslow wants to paint a rosy picture of life at the club, but more worryingly wants to paint it in different ways to different people. Eventually different people chat, swap stories, see holes and wonder what’s going on.

The person most aggrieved, and most likely to blow him up – if it’s true of course – is Rafa. And that’s all the more likely when Purslow has constantly tried to spin stories about us spending £20m net, then saying it included wage rises, then saying Rafa got all the players he wanted (he didn’t) and all in all let Rafa take all the blame when maybe it needed to be shared.

Purslow would feel far more comfortable with someone who did exactly what they were told to do. Like a union who didn’t protest in case potential buyers were watching, fans who should be happy he’s come in, that kind of thing.

I thought we weren’t commenting on interest to the media according to Broughton? Seems like someone is trying to present a picture here:

“There is certainly a mood change now,” one insider said. “But we’re not close to any done deal yet.”

Also in that article it mentions:

“Hicks and Gillett will not sack Benitez; The Independent has been told by a senior club insider that there is “no chance at all” of that happening because a £16m pay-off would be necessary to facilitate it”

Regarding motivation for getting rid of Benitez, that’s pretty much what I was thinking, that Benitez is an annoyance. This is all the more reason to keep him in my opinion. For all the debate over Rafa’s rights and wrongs with the team, surely we need him to stay for his political aptitude and the fact that he is probably the one person we can trust who wants the best for the team.

Forgot to mention, in addition to that Inde piece, Oli K said this on his webchat:

“Someone (not at LFC, but well connected) said to me yesterday that the reported interested from China wasn’t thought to be genuine”

Combined with the “mood change” comment, it would seem that the club is trying to trick the fans into thinking there’s movement after the revelations about the finance being extended for 12 months.

Will they just fuck off?!

(Oliver Kay:
“I don’t know if what I’ve heard can be described as “news”. In fact, if it had, I would have written in that newspaper that I work for. Someone (not at LFC, but well connected) said to me yesterday that the reported interested from China wasn’t thought to be genuine. He didn’t know about the reported interest from Syria. He suggested to me — and he wouldn’t expand — that, as well as the Middle East, American interest remained strong. Another contact has told me of another interested party who will make his interest known in the next week or so. All he would say beyond that was that the person was “more than credible”. And I know this sounds incredibly vague, but it’s as much as people have told me, so it’s much as I can tell you … “)

I thought we weren’t commenting on interest to the media according to Broughton? Seems like someone is trying to present a picture here:

“There is certainly a mood change now,” one insider said. “But we’re not close to any done deal yet.”

Also in that article it mentions:

“Hicks and Gillett will not sack Benitez; The Independent has been told by a senior club insider that there is “no chance at all” of that happening because a £16m pay-off would be necessary to facilitate it”

Regarding motivation for getting rid of Benitez, that’s pretty much what I was thinking, that Benitez is an annoyance. This is all the more reason to keep him in my opinion. For all the debate over Rafa’s rights and wrongs with the team, surely we need him to stay for his political aptitude and the fact that he is probably the one person we can trust who wants the best for the team.